The Mingsha Mountain and Crescent Lake Nature Park is a popular attraction in Dunhuang to explore stunning desert scenery and take part in exciting sand dunes activities. The park consists of the Mingsha Mountain and the Crescent Lake surrounded by sand dunes of Mingsha Mountains. Dunhuang is also known as Shazhou (Town of Sand) in ancient time. This is how it gained the name.
The Crescent Lake, which is considered a natural wonder of the Gobi Desert, is an oasis located 6km south of Dunhuang in China’s western Gansu Province. The lake is something of an enigma as it has existed for thousands of years and was considered a special place during the Han Dynasty (202BC to 220AD).Because the lake is dwarfed by the surrounding sand dunes, it’s a wonder it hasn’t filled up and been covered over many times, but due to a natural depression, the winds blow the sand across the nearby singing sand dunes and away from the spring.
